@article{
author = "Atić, Aleksandar and Wang, Xizhe and Vuković, Nikola and Stanojević, Novak and Demić, Aleksandar and Indjin, Dragan and Radovanović, Jelena",
year = "2024",
abstract = "ZnO-based heterostructures are up-and-coming candidates for terahertz (THz) optoelectronic devices, largely owing to their innate material attributes. The significant ZnO LO-phonon energy plays a pivotal role in mitigating thermally induced LO-phonon scattering, potentially significantly elevating the temperature performance of quantum cascade lasers (QCLs). In this work, we calculate the electronic structure and absorption of ZnO/ZnMgO multiple semiconductor quantum wells (MQWs) and the current density–voltage characteristics of nonpolar m-plane ZnO/ZnMgO double-barrier resonant tunnelling diodes (RTDs). Both MQWs and RTDs are considered here as two building blocks of a QCL. We show how the doping, Mg percentage and layer thickness affect the absorption of MQWs at room temperature. We confirm that in the high doping concentrations regime, a full quantum treatment that includes the depolarisation shift effect must be considered, as it shifts mid-infrared absorption peak energy for several tens of meV. Furthermore, we also focus on the performance of RTDs for various parameter changes and conclude that, to maximise the peak-to-valley ratio (PVR), the optimal doping density of the analysed ZnO/Zn88Mg12O double-barrier RTD should be approximately 1018 cm−3, whilst the optimal barrier thickness should be 1.3 nm, with a Mg mole fraction of ~9%.",
journal = "Materials",
title = "Resonant Tunnelling and Intersubband Optical Properties of ZnO/ZnMgO Semiconductor Heterostructures: Impact of Doping and Layer Structure Variation",
volume = "17",
number = "4",
pages = "927",
doi = "10.3390/ma17040927"
}
